


Great Nature's Second Course

by Letterblade



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Aftermath, Anxiety, Gen, PTSD, sleep problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-20 23:09:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11345022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Letterblade/pseuds/Letterblade
Summary: Ven's a bit of a wreck now that he's woken up, and never wants to sleep again. Aqua's a bigger wreck, and hasn't slept in ten years. (Terra, champion wreck, is not yet in the picture.)





	Great Nature's Second Course

**Author's Note:**

> Handwavey KH3 shenanigans, you know the drill. I know KH has its aesthetic but I'd kill for Aqua to be showing physical changes after her time in the realm of Darkness. Also let Ven have character development and rough edges and some maturity, gdit. I don't know why I write him with anxiety, though, I just always have.
> 
> Terra ate three dozen eggs every day until he got large and you cannot convince me otherwise.

Ven’s pretty sure he never wants to sleep again.

Which is not to say that he isn’t weak at first, shaky, malnourished, aching. Strange sweet pangs in his chest as his heart stirs and pulses, because he still isn’t complete, Aqua and this new Master Riku both say there’s no darkness in him, which means Vanitas is—gone. Somewhere or not at all, Ven doesn’t know. So he’s still broken.

But whatever. He’s alive and awake and functional and _himself_. It’s not like he’s ever _not_ been broken, that he remembers. And sleeping hadn’t been that bad, because Sora.

Nothing like what Aqua had been through.

She’s scraped thin, a grim light in her eyes like he’s never seen. She doesn’t seem smaller, not quite, but the tendons stand out on the backs of her hands, cords of muscles in her arms, furrowed old claw marks in her skin. All her softness ground into strength. She’s fine, she says. She’s worried about him and Terra, she says. Never herself, because she’s _Aqua_.

She eats like she’s never had food before in her life, bewildered and ravenous, and Ven remembers her expertly flipping omelettes in the morning like it was yesterday, or making them hot chocolate with the egg yolk in it, thick and delicious, the way they’d discovered when Terra was building up his weight and putting eggs in _everything_. Nibbling absentmindedly on dried fruit as she read, assembling picnics, handing Ven jerky to keep his energy up during long practices. A week or two ago, as far as Ven could remember.

An eternity, for Aqua.

Ven pushes himself hard, sparring with Sora, trying to get back into form. The straps of his pauldron are a little looser than they used to be, and his muscles ache and burn with the work like they hadn’t since he was little. Aqua fusses. “Take it easy, Ven. Get some rest.”

“I’ve rested enough,” Ven says, feeling a pout tug at his mouth. He’s about ready to jitter out of his skin. Can’t stand the thought of being helpless, defenseless, weak, as if pushing his Ars Arcanum back into peak form could somehow save him from all the things under the surface (Eraqus sentencing him to death, Terra burning black, Xehanort ripping into his heart, Vanitas, Vanitas, Vanitas)that he didn’t want to think about, or dream about, or let in anywhere.

Aqua doesn’t sleep herself, not exactly; she rests sitting with her back to a wall, curled tight, Master Keeper held outside her knees like a shield. Dark circles grow under her eyes. “There’s no need to sleep or eat in the realm of Darkness,” this new Master Riku says, elbows on his knees, fidgeting with his big, rawboned hands. “It’s…strange to adjust to. Stranger to adjust back, maybe.”

Ven does frown then, far beyond pouting, and the next time Aqua levers herself down to rest, wound tight and wary, he scampers off through the colorful labyrinth of Mickey’s castle, where they’re staying, and finds a very soft and puffy pink comforter to drag back with him.

Aqua’s grip on her keyblade tightens at the first echo of his footsteps, and her head comes up with a jerk, eyes wild. Then she forces herself to relax.

“Ven, that’s not—”

“You need to sleep sometime,” Ven says, as firmly as he can muster, clutching the puff of down tighter than he’d like to admit. It feels like he’s playing ice-cream-cannon with his brain, thock-thock-thock in rhythm to try to shut down those thoughts of _she won’t listen to me_ , _I was never anything but a thing to anybody_ , which are much more unpleasant than ducklings, really, but maybe ice cream will make them go away.

“I,” Aqua starts, and blinks.

“I know it’s scary.” Thock-thock-thock. He spreads his arms wide, comforter rustling. “I don’t want to either. But I seriously have not gotten tired in three days, I’ll sleep when I do, and I’ll probably have gross nightmares and wake up anyway, but right now, I’m fine, and you look…” He runs out of steam right around then, because it would probably be pretty mean to say what she looks like, and also morbid.

Aqua’s wiry, callused hands are a knot on Master Keeper’s hilt. “Ven, I can handle myself.”

“But…you don’t have to.” Ven sinks slowly into a crouch, sliding the comforter towards her. “Aqua, I’m worried about you. I _know_ you want to take care of me, but seriously, you’ve done it, you’ve done so much. ’S not fair to either of us if it only goes one way.”

She goes a little still, and studies him carefully for a long moment, hollow-eyed. And then smiles, small and soft. “You…you’ve grown.”

“Not really,” Ven says quietly. Because he hasn’t. No time to. _She just never listened to you before._ Thock-thock-thock.

“Can I tell you a secret?”

He extracts a hand from the comforter to offer his pinkie. There’s this terribly slow, confused moment when he wonders if she even remembers what _that_ means, and then she actually laughs a little, and peels a hand off her keyblade’s hilt to hook their pinkies.

“I’m not sure I know how anymore,” she says, voice small. “To sleep, I mean.”

Ven’s heart _hurts_ , like some Unversed is trying to choke the air out of him, and he smiles, a little lopsided. “Well, you _are_ talking to an expert.”

Something icy breaks, and they laugh together, actually laughing. He tosses the comforter at her, burying her, and she squeaks, and then stares down at it. “It’s so _soft_ …”

“I know, right? Warm, too. And if you wrap up in it, the floor won’t be as hard. You can let go of your keyblade.”

“But,” she starts, reflexively.

“I’ll keep watch,” Ven says, and settles down next to her, back to the wall. It’s…a little uncomfortably familiar, but he keeps his chin up, and summons his own keyblade to lay across his knees. “They’ll never get to you while I’m here.”

It’s also pretty much impossible for the Heartless to get into this world at all, barring sabotage of its defenses. But that hasn’t stopped Aqua from jumping at shadows.

She settles very slowly, and eventually Master Keeper flickers away, and eventually Ven convinces her to lie on her side.

“Just breathe,” he says. “Nice and slow.”

She breathes. She’s right there, curled tight on her side, a pink burrito. Some part of Ven wants to reach out, ruffle her hair like she’d ruffle his. He doesn’t; she’s twitchy enough. She mumbles a few last protests, paws at the hilt of Ven’s keyblade like she wants to make sure it’s there, listens to a few last reassurances.

She’s out like a light in about five minutes.

He watches her for a long time, the slow rise and fall of comforter. She makes small, soft noises in her sleep, uncurls just a touch as she relaxes. He’s only ever seen her asleep before when she’d faceplanted in a book during late-night study and then pretended it had never happened. Because she’s _Aqua_ , she’s never anything but calm, and gracious, and all those Aqua things, and seeing her like this is—terrifying, if he’s being honest with himself.

He wonders, with a faint, wretched stab of regret, if it’s the same kind of fear they’d both felt when he’d shoved their hands off his shoulders, when he’d asked them to put an end to him.

This is—how it is now. They’re both broken. Terra, if they get him back, _when_ they get him back…Aqua hasn’t told him everything, he’s pretty sure, and it’s making him mad, but he knows whatever happened to him was bad. Worse than Aqua, maybe. The thought makes him sick.

He’d had Sora to take care of him, at least, and the bliss of timeless sleep. He’s better off. It’s his turn to take care of them. His turn to stand watch.

Aqua inches closer to him in her sleep, and he finally gives him and rests a hand very lightly on her shoulder, probably hard to feel through the down. She doesn’t wake, and he breathes a little sigh of relief.

She sleeps a long time. Clean, monsterless shadows crawl across the castle floor. Ven hums to himself, wide awake, and watches her breathe. Practices casting little spells, simple ones that he can do with a whisper and a flick without disturbing her. Aero comes the easiest, of course.

The wayward wind stirs her hair against her cheek, and Aqua looks almost whole again in her sleep.


End file.
